Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Cheesy Sausage Pinwheels

When I made the Skinny Zuppa Toscana Soup the other day, I decided to brown up some extra turkey Italian sausage to use in other recipes during the week. I kept thinking about this combination I put together below and Cheesy Sausage Pinwheels were born! Oh my goodness...these are delish! Turkey Sausage, cheese, and banana peppers all rolled into a slightly sweet crescent roll base. They would be a great addition to any spread this weekend for the Superbowl!

They are so simple to make too. The hardest part is making sure the perforations in the crescent dough are sealed tightly. This is a very important step to take to make sure the fillings don't all fall out when you are rolling them. If you can find the seamless refrigerated crescent roll dough, even better! It will make your life so much easier!

You will also want to make sure you are baking these on parchment, a silpat or some non-stick foil, because the bottoms will have cheese on them so they can easily stick. I used my silpat and had no problem with them coming off the pan easily.

These little bites of "man candy" (as I like to call them!) are great dipped in your favorite jarred marinara sauce. The sausage-banana pepper combo is a favorite of my middle son's on pizza. These bites are my tribute to him! :) They make a great appetizer or a fun snack for any occasion.

Instructions

Open crescent roll dough. Open out into a large sheet of dough. Pinch any perforations together tightly! This is a very important step and take time to make sure you do a good job of this. If using the seamless kind, just open into a large sheet of dough.

Gently spread the cream cheese over the surface of the dough (doesn't have to be perfect) to about 1/2" of the edges. Top with cooked sausage crumbles, chopped banana peppers, and Mozzarella cheese.

Starting on one end of the long side, carefully and tightly roll up dough into a log pinwheel style. Seal edge of dough once all rolled into a log.